A short piece about the principles of networking

These ten principles of networking (particularly aimed at startup businesses) have been developed from thirteen years of networking, coaching and teaching about networking and talking to other networkers.  It may all be rubbish, but I suggest you try them before you dismiss them.

There is a prior principle:

0  Businesses in start up need to do only one thing:  get clients.

Principles

1  The purpose of going to networking events is not to find clients.  It is to find people who might know clients.

2  Networking isn’t going to networking events.  Networking is having the one to one conversations with people you have met at networking events.

3  If you have no fee-earning work in a day, have four one to one conversations.  Use networking events to find these people.

4  There is a minimum number of one to ones you need to have (per week).  Consistently fail to reach this minimum and, in the long term, you might as well not bother to do any.

5  At the end of every one to one meeting, ask “Who do you know who might be interested in what I do?”

6  When people ask, “What do you do?”, don’t tell them—tell them a story.

7  Never, ever sell—certainly not at a networking event.

8  Don’t talk about benefits:  business people aren’t—or shouldn’t be—concerned with benefits.  They are concerned with getting help in solving their problems.

9  Never talk about costs.  (Far too early.)

10  Let go of your expectations.

Related material:
>  1, 2:  A short piece about going to networking events . Networking guide [contains many articles and stories relevant to networking]
>  6:  Why tell a story? . Work story index
>  7:  An emotionally intelligent approach to sales and  Stop selling!—1 and Stop selling!—2
>  10:  A short piece about dealing with your expectations

by Jeremy Marchant . acknowledgements to Grant Leboff for the general tenor of this approach and 7, 8 and 9 particularly . to Darren Shirlaw for 0, 3 and 5 . to Sarah Owen and her colleagues for 1 and 2 . to Chuck Spezzano and his colleagues for 10 .  © 2015 Jeremy Marchant Limited . uploaded 7 july 2015 . images:  Free images
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